04/09/2016

WHEN RELATIONSHIPS END

In my new book, "The Happiness Tree" now available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble online bookstores, you'll find the following important treatise on Relationships. Please enjoy and share with your friends and family on Facebook and other Social Media platforms. Please, also share your thoughts at the bottom of the article.

Most importantly, take my thoughts to heart. Sometimes, our relationships are part of our journey, rather than a destination in and of themselves. If you understand and apply that concept you'll recover faster when a valued partnership suddenly takes a turn.

Our love relationships are among our most intense human connections. Unlike those we share with family and friends, they reach into every part of our lives, intellectual, emotional and physical. And when they end, whether that ending results from a death or irreconcilable differences, the pain can be unbearable.

Recovery however, just like any grieving process, does have a beginning a middle and an end. Yet the end, will most likely not return you neatly back to where you started before the relationship began… you and your life will be inexorably altered by the experience. And perhaps that is the take-away message here: that we grow more from our painful losses and failures than we do from our triumphs.

The imperative to grow, when we truly examine the choices and actions we've made, seems to lead us into challenging situations, where the likelihood of a successful outcome is low and yet we continue to follow the same counter-productive patterns. Then one day, usually after several major relationships are resigned to the rear view mirror, we decide to reduce our vulnerability by either making the decision to live alone or finding partners based on practical considerations rather than just emotional ones. This is what we decide that our failures are trying to tell us, that to follow our heart is to court disaster. But this seemingly rational response to a series of heartaches signifies a loss of innocence, a hardening of our hearts: as though we could avoid future emotional pain by just becoming determined to feel less.

If you look hard enough, you can see these refugees of love's losses all around you. Like the walking wounded, they remain insulated in their little bubbles, unwilling and eventually unable to create meaningful connections, because they have lost the ability to trust anyone, including themselves. If you allow life's less-than-happy twists and turns to make you bitter, you may one day find yourself among these refugees: living on the periphery of everything, unable to dedicate passion to any pursuit, as you have come to perceive the development of passion as the slippery slope, which always leads to pain.

So how can you recover from these relationship pitfalls while keeping your heart open to new, healthier possibilities? Well, first of all, just know that all relationships are a gamble and that by entering into one, you agree to potentially expose yourself to pain and loss.

This however should not deter you. Life is all about experiences and growth and while you may suffer the loss of something meaningful if and when it ends, the experiences you will share with another human being will become woven into the poignant tapestry of your life.

We become richer, more seasoned, compassionate and hopefully wiser human beings when we allow ourselves to leap into the unknown once in a while. The key is in how you engage in your relationships and as with many of life's challenges, the operative word is balance.

I have learned that to be in love does not necessitate losing yourself in the process, though many do. And in so doing, they become fearful that if their love is not returned to the degree they expect or if their partner begins to drift away that they themselves, will also drift away and eventually disappear.

When you love deeply, for those of you who are intensely emotional, the tendency is to invest yourself totally in the relationship, tying your own personal destiny to the ebb and flow of capricious love.

But I warn you: though you believe this demonstrates to your partner how deeply in love you are, it tempts almost certain disaster. Now you are no longer the confident, happy, spontaneous, fun person you once were, you slowly become fearful, apprehensive, untrusting, paranoid and cynical. Why? Because you have invested everything into something you know is risky, so you find yourself hyper-vigilant to any sign of weakness in the bonds that connect you.

Your fears are actually negative thoughts that yearn to be vindicated, so you begin seeking evidence to defend your position that your partner is being unfair, has fallen out of love, or has even become unfaithful.

And like a self fulfilling prophesy your constant focus on and expectation of calamity drives your partner away and potentially creates the very scenario you fear.

If you're young, I say, first learn about what it is to live alone. Learn to enjoy your own company and how to be self-sufficient. This will help you recognize that you don't need someone else to be functional or happy. There are many sources of joy and passion in this world, from which you can choose. Revealing a hidden talent or exposing yourself to areas of learning that excite you can bring tremendous satisfaction.

Your continued personal development relies on you engaging in these activities before and after you decide to create a lasting partnership.

Someday though, love will come calling and you will feel helpless to resist it's pull. That's okay, it's normal and natural, go with it. But always maintain that awareness of self that you established earlier.

Continue to develop and maintain your inner core, to nurture your own passions and talents. Embrace an attitude of sharing yourself with another rather than just becoming one half of a relationship.

In this way, you are likely to recover faster if love takes an unfortunate turn. You will still have the full life you had before your relationship started and that will form the impenetrable base, below which you will not fall.

If you're more mature, and love's dagger has struck you down in midlife, it may feel more difficult to recover. As we get older, we are naturally likely to have more intense feelings and even visions of living out our lives with one special person.

When those hopes are dashed, we may fear being alone forever more, forgotten and invisible. And as our social network has probably been pruned back, we may find less of a safety net underneath us to cushion our fall. This is why it becomes more important to carefully consider the people we bring into our lives. We no longer have the luxury of time to make costly mistakes. Now the stakes are much higher and the crowd of likely candidates has diminished. Those that remain likely have suffered their own emotional setbacks, causing them to also be apprehensive of any future commitments.

The key here is to choose carefully and not to bet the farm on every new connection. And even though you're older and less active, it's still important, maybe even more so, to stay engaged in activities that you enjoy, that fulfill you.

This is a good plan whether in preparation for a future with someone new, or as a strategy for healing from a recent loss. Stay positive, resist the temptation to become bitter and insulated, examine your own mistakes and thereby find forgiveness for those who caused you pain.

Realize that they are on their own path of discovery and most likely suffering in their own way.

Smile a lot, take care of your health, read, write, exercise or just rest, whatever seems to bring relief or distraction. But take care not to begin habits like repetitive drug use or drinking to excess. These seemingly temporary coping mechanisms can actually develop into pernicious addictions that will drive down your chances of a full recovery.

Instead, put one foot in front of the other, take care of yourself as well as all the people, things and details of your life. Day by day, the pain will give way to insight and growth. This is what it is to be human. Be grateful for what you have and for that day, waiting for you at some point in the unknowable future, when you’ll be ready for love to once again find you worthy.

All preceding content is copyrighted and excerpted from

The Happiness Tree

by Shane Eric Mathias

ISBN: 9 781504 343343Now available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble online retailers, as well selected bookstores

Random Samples to Get You Started

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_________________________
What is The Happiness Tree?

This blog and its companion
book are a direct challenge to the preconceived notions,
fears, biases and flawed approaches that hold many of us back from
success in relationships, work, creativity and most importantly, life
satisfaction.

Like many of you, from my
adolescent years, I was seeking guidance to
help me understand the complex interplay between myself and the world
at large: A sort of “Life Manual”. I would peruse book stores and act
on recommendations by friends and respected “gurus”, and never found a
book, program or methodology that connected all the dots.

I’d read one book about
Spirituality, and another about Self Esteem.
Yet another about The Creative Process followed by a treatise on
Relationships. Each book seemed to partially address one piece of the
puzzle, but not how that element fit into or coordinated with all the
others.
Then at a dark, pivotal point in my mid-life, I felt the need for just
such a paradigm shift. A complete overhaul of my belief systems and a
new scaffolding upon which to construct my future. I was sure that in
the new frontier of the internet, I’d be able to find just the right
message, delivered just the right way that would provide me that “Aha
moment” I so desperately desired. But alas, I found only bits and
pieces, not a cohesive, holistic approach to creating sustainable
happiness.

So, I built
it myself.

One of the pearls of wisdom
that stuck with me during my many years of
searching, was that ‘all the tools and information we need to create a
productive, happy life, are already inside of us’. This made sense to
me. Though not a religious person, I have always believed that we were
brought
into this life to fulfill a purpose. And if that was so, then it would
stand to reason that we’d be provided the skills necessary to manifest
that purpose or at least the means to acquire them. From that
perspective, our challenge then, from the moment we’re born, (or some
would say, even before that), is to discover our mission, then develop
the energy, passion and abilities to fulfill it.

Along the way though, most of
us get bogged down in the details. To use
a driving metaphor, we head off perhaps in the right direction and then
hit a pothole. Our vehicle becomes temporarily disabled and so we hitch
a ride and become a passenger on someone else’s journey. Through
detours and switchbacks, we may
spend years retracing our steps in an effort
to regain the momentum of those earlier times. Along the way,
circumstance or destiny places what feels like insurmountable barriers
in our path,
causing us to rethink our entire rai·son d'ê·tre.

This is usually when the pivot
happens. When our belief systems
collapse, leaving us feeling incapable of addressing even the simplest
task, for lack of confidence in our own abilities or the very
righteousness of humanity. I built The Happiness Tree for this critical
juncture in my own life and by extension, to help you through yours.

This system is named The
Happiness Tree, for a reason. By following its
intuitive structure: Roots; Trunk; Limbs and Branches, we begin to
organize the seemingly complex interplay between ourselves and others,
into a visual framework, allowing us to step back for the first time
and see the entire global connections that make up our lives. From this
vantage point, areas that are weak or unbalanced are revealed. We are
then guided toward achieving a broader and more effective
distribution of our time, energy, talents, passions and goals through
the implementation of practical, common sense strategies. Branch, by
branch we begin to fill out our own unique tree, from top to bottom,
enhancing our confidence, relationships, creativity, purpose and
ultimately, our life satisfaction and happiness.

Let "The
Happiness Tree" support you on your quest to achieve the life
you’ve always dreamed of. Just read, absorb, practice. evolve and
become the manifestation of Joy in your own life and that of those you
love.